


Something To Be Learned From a Rainstorm

by megahypno



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Dangan Ronpa AU, Gen, alternate deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megahypno/pseuds/megahypno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which Hagakure might be taken seriously if looked at very carefully under Saturn's rings in the light of the full moon approximately 30 degrees northwest of why did I write this.</p><p>(This is a serious fic. I, however, am not a serious person. An AU where Junko does not completely erase Hagakure's memories.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_[Memory Alteration Program Ready]_

...

If any of the fourteen individuals laid out on the cots in the school infirmary had been conscious, they would have been met with a squeal of unadulterated delight. Unfortunately for them, propofol is one hell of a drug and their classmate’s cacophony went unnoticed. Junko Enoshima was practically lilting as she crossed the tile floor, knee-high boots clicking cheerfully against the whirr of the processors and the slow drip of the intravenous anesthetic. She lived for this. Too much of her life she’d spent suffocating down long dark hallways in short red skirts watching a growing populace live a shrinking existence. This, she decided, had been worth the wait.

She supposed she could have just left them to their own devices. There would be no lack of despair if she simply turned them loose to contend with the outside world, but she had to admit after all this time she harbored a certain fondness for the students of Hope’s Peak and it would be a shame to let them all go after she’d put in so much effort. She hammered out the access code just a little too aggressively as she settled into the chair, lips puckered, hiding the faintest of smiles. After a moment, her grin split wide, transforming her face into a ghoulish mimicry of human joy (an image she’d have been quite pleased with if she could see it herself). The screen displayed a rotating Monobear head as it idled, which winked when the software loaded and disappeared.

Fourteen icons popped up on the monitor, each one a pixellated likeness of the owner of the MRI below it. High-contrast colors rippled and warped across each individual brain. At this stage of sleep, they were all engulfed in light, dreaming. Dreams. Junko briefly considered what their dreams might look like. What dreams she might be erasing forever. The thought made her giddy.

Wiping minds, Junko knew from experience, was a messy and often tedious business. One slip up and she might have just over a dozen high schoolers reduced to drooling infants, able to control only their most basic functions. Only the first prototype of this machine had been vulnerable to such unfortunate errors, but she was not above taking extra precaution at this early stage of the game. She pulled up a list of sequences she’d set aside specifically for each student, each file denoted with icons identical to those labelling the brain maps. It added a somewhat personal touch to what Junko considered a rather impersonal procedure and she liked to think that her friends would be impressed with the thought she’d put into it. She giggled, her finger hovering over the ‘Enter’ key before inhaling sharply and pressing it.  
  
Immediately the scans changed. Most of the higher cerebrum activity diminished significantly. The impressive array of dancing light receded into barely visible static in the creases of the brain. This was nothing to be worried about. After the wipe finished they would be less a few IQ points but Junko decided that wasn’t altogether a bad thing as her eyes flicked over one ‘Kyouko Kirigiri’. Theoretically, they were all perfectly comatose at the moment, not that some of them weren’t before she’d put them under. Just because she was fond of them didn’t mean she liked any of them, quite the opposite in fact. Their diversity of character was like a bad television drama, and while she enjoyed that, taking them all as individuals she couldn’t stand most of them.

\---

An urgent series of beeps dragged her out of her masochistic meditations. In the lower right hand corner of the monitor, one of the brains was going wild. Colors spasmed and arced across it, flooding areas that should have been completely inactive during sleep. A dialogue box popped up warning, in so many words, that there was a severe danger in losing the mental capacities of the patient if the mind wipe wasn’t stopped immediately.  
  
Junko did not hesitate to terminate the program. Too many empty seats in the courtroom and she’d just be cheating herself. She pulled up the offending brain map. The rave taking place there had apparently settled down, and the colors returned to their slow rippling dance. Reading carefully, the painful grimace on Junko’s face slowly melted into a nonplussed stare as she absorbed the full gravity of the situation.  
  
‘Yasuhiro Hagakure: Super High School Level Fortune Teller’  
  
Of all the warped personalities to grace this school, this was the one to break the back of her tireless years of research and development? Yasuhiro Hagakure, the man who couldn’t even tie his own shoes let alone accurately predict the future. His business was swindling, and even that he couldn’t manage without getting caught. That’s why he was here, ultimately. Why he was currently sprawled out over a makeshift hospital bed where he was apparently enjoying a deep REM sleep, that lazy, stupid, ignorant--  
  
Junko relaxed her clenched fists, reminding herself that losing her temper could result in much more serious issues at this stage of her plan. A few keystrokes brought Hagakure’s brain into full view. Exhaling slowly through barely parted lips, she selected ‘Run Diagnostic Scan’ before pushing herself away from the desk and rolling over to the cot containing the stubborn shaman in question. His face, like all the others’, was serene, untouched by worry.

Sighing, she leaned over so her face hovered directly over her victim’s. Beneath the usual haze of incense, he smelled faintly of booze, a remnant of last night’s party no doubt. She never recalled him being much of a drinker but then again she recalled very little about him personally. It’s hard to pay attention to the nuances of a person when they tend to define themselves by things like how infrequently they brush their teeth because fluoride is an ectoplasmic draw and invites ghosts, apparently.

The diagnostic scan would take some time, but regardless, the SHSL Gyaru was faced with a decision. Absentmindedly, she began running her fingers over the sea of dreadlocks in front of her. It could be worse, she chided herself for her overreaction earlier. If it had been Kirigiri or Naegi, this entire operation would have been finished. The fact that Hagakure was able to resist her where the others were not-- it was almost endearing. She found herself smiling as she instinctively began to separate his hair into three sections for braiding. Before her sister had chopped all her hair off, Junko used to make her sit while she braided it, just because she knew Mukuro couldn’t stand it. While Hagakure probably didn’t care either way, Junko was content to relive a little childhood glee to put off deciding what to do with the boy.

Her attentions became focused on the task at hand, fingers snagging on stray dreads and scratching across his scalp. It was fairly likely that Hagakure didn’t remember being drugged at the party last night and it was also fairly likely that he would have impaired short-term memory upon waking up. Incomplete mind wipes tended to do that to a person. Without missing a beat, she withdrew a bobby pin from her own hair and tucked an unruly strand behind the shaman’s ear. If she released him into the school as-is, the likelihood of him convincing anyone that they were all close friends was next to zero. His conspiratorial nature and attempted familiarity would more likely drive his classmates away and (the next thought made her eyes widen with devilish delight) his own personal despair would deepen as his former friends abandoned him, leaving him to suffer alone in this strange alien world where no one even remembered his name.

She tugged a rubber band off her wrist, snapped it around the base of the braid she’d just finished constructing, rolled over to the computer and terminated the diagnostics scan all in one swift movement. There was no need for it now.

Flicking the cigarette she’d been saving out from behind her ear, Junko cheerfully appreciated the irony of the situation. The man whose talent dealt with the future, burdened by the past. If she believed in things like fate, she’d have said as much now, but if that were the case surely it wouldn’t be resting on the shoulders of the least capable man alive.  
  
The click of her lighter was almost lost in the ambient sounds of the infirmary and swish of the door behind her. She had some coins to hide.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Yasuhiro Hagakure was dreaming, though he didn’t know it just yet. An unseen force propelled his body through the haze of sleep as visions faded into one another. Walking. Trying to find… something. A moment ago he’d been with his friends but now he seemed to be all alone. Unfamiliar surroundings. This wasn’t his house or the park. Something was wrong. Where was everyone? He looked down at his own hand and couldn’t quite focus on it. The fingers weren’t his. They were too long, too misshapen. They moved on their own, grasping into the void. Someone cried out in pain as the unrecognizable hands struggled to find purchase against the endless chasm. The bottom dropped out of his stomach just as he realized the cry was his own.

The uncomfortable slam of metal against wood cut through the air as the shaman lurched forward to break his fall. A dream. Vision swimming, he raised his body slowly, waiting for the room to come into focus. Clearly he’d had way too much to drink last night. He was able to deduce this from several important indicators: One, someone had braided his hair. Two, he couldn’t remember anything that happened after Celes offered him the fourth drink of the evening. Three, he had-- judging by his aching lower back-- fallen asleep in this position, in some disused classroom. The dim emergency lights flickered as if to confirm his assertion, plunging the room momentarily into darkness before once again bathing it in a dull yellow glow.

Together, these three undeniable facts pointed to some kind of crazy late-night dare or perhaps an ascension to a plane of higher knowledge (though the latter seemed unlikely as Yasuhiro distinctly recalled leaving his vision-inducing spirits behind). Unsure of how to handle this development, the fortune teller giggled nervously. It filled the dead air for a moment before fading and leaving the room somehow more empty than before.  
  
Sighing, he rose from the desk he’d apparently been dozing in to get a better look at his surroundings. Desks and chairs lay strewn about the classroom. That itself seemed odd, considering most if not all the classes in the school were utilized. He couldn’t recall any classrooms in this much disrepair all his time here at the academy, before or after the events that had caused him to take up permanent residence here.

“Ever since…” he uttered into the chilly silence, more to collect the details for himself than anything. But words failed him when he tried to recall the specifics. He remembered the sleepless nights desperately scrounging for electricity, food, shelter, information.Then the quarantine happened and they’d all had to face the new reality of spending an indefinite amount of time within the walls of Hope’s Peak. That had been almost a month ago now, and last night’s party had been a kind of celebration of making it this far, though it had gone unspoken amongst the remaining students. The thought was too painful, and he decided to put the past out of his mind. Time enough for reflection later.

A little anxious, he reached up to scratch his chin.  
  
“Ehh?”   
  
A thick layer of dust on the underside of his shirt sleeve caught his eye.

“Just how long was I out?!” A panicked whisper escaped him as he began to frantically brush the accumulation off his clothes, before realizing that if he had indeed been asleep for long enough to collect dust, the layers would be on the top of his sleeve, rather than on the bottom. The dust must have come from somewhere else.

Casting an eye downward he noticed a distinct mark on the desk where he’d had his head resting on his arms, confirming his suspicions.  
  
“I think Kirigiri would be pretty proud of me, right?” the shaman mused aloud as he ran a finger across its surface to demonstrate this observation to himself.  
  
“But this does not solve the greatest mystery of all!”  
  
Turning his head sharply, he flicked a thick braid of hair over his shoulder and began running his hands over the knotted surface.  
“Who did I allow to braid my hair last night, eh?” He projected theatrically into the silence, placing one hand dramatically on his chin while the other continued to caress his dreads.  
  
He went over the potential culprits in his mind. The boys were out of the question. He was fairly certain none of them even knew how to braid hair. Kirigiri? No. Celes? Definitely not. Asahina…?  
  
The corners of his mouth twitched as he imagined the swimmer sitting behind him, tugging playfully on each strand of hair, maybe a little harder than was necessary. The thought was enough to convince him that the new hairdo was worth keeping. Satisfied, he tossed the dreads behind him and meandered towards the door. There was no point in hanging around here, since it was clear no one was going to come get him.  
  
Once in the hall, the shaman was able to regain his bearings somewhat. This was clearly the first floor, though he was only able to tell by the general layout of the classrooms. The usual fluorescent lighting appeared to be out, as the emergency lights were on out here as well, casting only small pools of purple light along the expanse of hallways and leaving the better part of the floor in total darkness. This wasn’t all that strange. Blackouts had become commonplace, and it wasn’t unusual to wake up to the hum of the school’s numerous backup generators working overtime to compensate for the power outage.

All the windows had been covered with sheet metal and bolted so as to be inaccessible from the outside, most likely. Marauders and gangs of thieves wouldn’t pass up a structure like Hope’s Peak for the world, or what was left of it. Now that he thought about it, under these circumstances that was actually a pretty poor trade.

He felt a little disoriented though he wasn’t entirely sure why. He’d roamed every corner of the school dawn to dusk (sometimes after if coaxed to do so by his miscreant friends), how could he feel out of place in the school he was happy to call his home? It was only when he made it to the first junction and read ‘AV Room’ on the door that his mental blueprints became accessible again.

“I must have had more than I thought last night,” the fortune teller chucked, reaching for the door handle to check if anyone was in there. It wasn’t uncommon to find Kirigiri or Mukuro glued to one of the screens these days, trying to scrape together a coherent image of the outside world from stray radio transmissions and the occasional news bulletin. Though it was unlikely they knew the whereabouts of the rest of the gang, company was company and truth be told he needed some at the moment.

He leaned against the door and depressed the handle only to find it resistant.

“Locked?”

He felt the familiar coil of anxiety tighten around his chest. Waking up in an empty classroom, the dark halls, the locked doors. None of the doors were locked anymore, they’d agreed to that before they came in here. It was supposed to foster trust or something like that, right? Somewhat frantic, he braced his shoulder against the door and shook the handle violently. His fruitless efforts clattered loudly through the empty halls before dying away to an occasional half hearted click.

He let his hand fall to his side and pushed himself upright again, feeling his body stand unsupported for a moment before he staggered and had to lean against the door once again. He felt his heart racing and his breath quicken, maybe from the effort of his sudden outburst or maybe just from the strain of everything that had happened over the past month. Maizono called them panic attacks, but before that he’d never had a word for the helpless floating and painful chest-crushing feeling of fear. He could almost hear her voice like a gentle chime through the rushing noise that was beginning to fill his brain.

“Okay, put your hands on your body, one on your lower stomach and one on your chest.”

“H-here, right?”

“A little higher, right on the bone. You need to feel the parts of your body that move when you breathe.”

He pressed both hands gently against his torso, struggling to catch his breath.

“Now, exhale a little through your mouth, and when you do relax all your muscles, droop your shoulders too. After that, inhale through your nose slowly and push your stomach out.”

“Why--”

“It’s not good to concentrate on your chest. How do you think I can hold a note for so long? The muscle underneath your stomach is the one you need to focus on if you want to get your breath back.”

He began to breathe in slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feeling the slow expansion of his stomach and the gentle compression as he pushed the air out of his lungs. The noise in his ears began to ebb away as he felt the knot in his chest loosen slightly. Ishimaru had the full set of keys. He’d probably locked the AV room because everyone was staying up late, watching movies or something. No need to freak out, right?

For a second time he pushed himself away from the door and began to make his way towards the cafeteria. A little breakfast, something to drink (non-alcoholic from now on) and he’d be just fine.

The rapid beat of feet hitting the floor reached him just as he started rounding the corner.

He didn’t even have enough time to shield himself as the unstoppable force careened into his tall but rather lightweight frame, knocking him to the ground with two distinct yelps filling the air, one much higher pitched than the other. He wasn’t sure which was his.

“Hey, no need to rush! The school ain’t goin’ anywhere, right?”

Yasuhiro rolled onto his side to get a better look at his unintentional assailant. Even in the dark he could identify the silhouette of that unruly hair.

“Eyy, Naegi! Where’s the fire?” he laughed, stumbling to his feet and extending a hand towards the SHSL Luckster. “Let’s go get some breakfast, I’m pretty sure I haven’t eaten since--”  
  
“Um!”

The tone of Naegi’s voice caught Yasuhiro completely off-guard.  Normally he wouldn’t have stopped but something about the panic in his best friend’s voice left him momentarily speechless.

“How-- how do you know my name?” the boy managed, staggering as he regained his feet on his own.

“Ha-ha. Good one dude,” the fortune teller said maybe a little too coldly, sticking his rejected hand into a pocket. “They should call you Super High School Level Jokester, right? C’mon, let’s go find the others, I’m starvin’.”

Reaching out to clap the shorter boy in the shoulder, Naegi suddenly flinched as though he were about to be hit, stammering, “We should go-- to the gym...”

“Ehh? What for? You’re not making any sense today kiddo, haha.”

The forced laugh seemed to be the last straw for Naegi, and he took this opportunity to begin walking away towards the gymnasium.

“H-hey! This isn’t funny, dude, c’mon-- haha!”

Yasuhiro trotted after him, hand outstretched once again. But once the luckster had disappeared around the corner he’d started running again, leaving a bedraggled and confused Yasuhiro to follow in stunned silence. It wasn’t like Naegi to play practical jokes in the first place, let alone continue them after he’d been asked to stop.

The doors to the gymnasium had been propped open and a warm glow filled the hallway outside the trophy room. Not all the lights were out, it seemed. Peering around the corner he was able to catch a glimpse of a large group milling around at the back of the gym itself. Some were easily identifiable. Celes’s hair drills were out in full force and The Ogre's monolithic figure towered over the crowd.

He tensed his shoulders and began to approach the entrance, his senses completely alert, though he couldn’t exactly say why. Taking a deep breath, he crossed the threshold into the light.

“Hey what’s the point of a status meeting if no one tells me about it, right?”

Crossing his arms in what he hoped was a convincing facade of confidence, he continued, “I’ll be taking compensation payment from whoever left me in that classroom overnight. My back is aching and I demand recompense! Since I’m feeling merciful it’ll only be 700,000 yen, this is the bargain of a lifetime, folks!”

When he opened his eyes, the whole room had turned to face him. Though he recognized every one, they all wore expressions he was entirely unfamiliar with. The most prominent, and the one that shook him the most was fear. The silence was broken by a harsh rasp from nearby the stage.

“Look buddy, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull but you better knock it the fuck off. This is bullshit! Do you even know who I am?”

The crowd parted to allow Mondo Oowada through their midst. His face was contorted into a snarl, which he was doing his best to turn into a sneer but his facial muscles couldn’t quite manage such a complex emotion.

“Ahh, you’re not in on it too, right?” Yasuhiro gulped as Oowada turned his head sharply and split the air with a loud neck crack.

“C’mon guys just drop it, I promise I won’t drink so much anymore! I get it alright?”

But Oowada continued to advance, clenching his hand into a tight fist near his face, “Eh? You look like ya know somthin’. If you don’t start talkin’ I might hafta start makin’ ya squeal.”

The fortune teller started to stumble as he instinctively backed away from the threatening display. From his left, a clear voice rang out through the gym.

“He clearly doesn’t know anything. It would be foolish to start getting into fights before we even know what the situation is.”

They both turned to face Celes, who was eyeing them coolly from the sidelines behind tightly curled fingers. Oowada’s face resumed its twisted snarl as he grunted, throwing a dirty look at Yasuhiro before turning on his heel and walking back towards the stage.

The low rumble of conversation resumed amongst the group after it became clear there wasn’t going to be a brawl. Some eyes continued to linger for a moment, still consumed with confusion and fear but the shaman wasn’t able to focus on them.

Something was horribly, desperately wrong. He was still dreaming, or had entered a parallel universe or something. His eyes flicked between the faces of each of his classmates. Oowada, Celes, Kirigiri, Naegi, Ishimaru, Maizono, Kuwata, The Ogre, Yamada, Togami, Fukawa, Chihiro, Junko, Asahina… Wait.

He counted again. Himself included, there were only fifteen of them in here. Someone was missing. He counted one more time just to be sure.

His eyes landed on Junko who was in the middle of staring blank-faced at Leon, who appeared to be trying to interest her in doing a photoshoot with his band, as soon as he had one.

As if in a dream he felt himself moving towards her, hand outstretched.

“H-hey!” He barked. His voice sounded strange even to himself. She turned slightly, her glare sharp enough to draw blood. He was aware of his voice trembling, his hands shaking, her cold stare cutting right through to the bone.

“Wh-where is she?  Where is--”

He felt a hand wrap gently around his forearm, and before he could even finish his thought, the words left him along with all the air in his lungs as his body collided with the hardwood floor.

**Author's Note:**

> F-forget you read this !! Forget, forget, forget beam !!


End file.
